Hezbollah history

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Hassan Nasrallah - Lebanese leader

born August 31, 1960, Beirut, Lebanon.
Nasrallah, Lebanese militia and political leader who served as
Secretary General of Hezbollah ("Party of God") from 1992.


Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was raised in the impoverished Karantina district of eastern Beirut, where his father ran a small grocery store.

As a boy Nasrallah was an earnest student of Islam.

After the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975 caused the family to flee south from Beirut, Nasrallah joined Amal, a Lebanese Shia paramilitary group with ties to Iran and Syria. Soon afterward he left for Najaf, Iraq, to study at the Shia seminary there.

Following the expulsion of hundreds of Lebanese students from Iraq in 1978, he returned to Lebanon and fought with Amal, becoming the group’s Al-Biqa Valley commander. Following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Nasrallah left Amal to join the nascent Hezbollah movement, a more-radical force that was heavily influenced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Nasrallah rose through Hezbollah’s ranks, and in 1988, when tensions with Amal flared, Nasrallah fought on the front lines. He assumed leadership of Hezbollah in 1992 after his predecessor, Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi, was killed by an Israeli missile. As a leader and cleric, Nasrallah relied on charisma and subtle charm to express his message. He was not a fiery or intimidating speaker. Rather, he came across as thoughtful, humble, and at times humorous. He emphasized the importance of Arab dignity and honour.

Under Nasrallah, Hezbollah staged attacks on Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon until Israel withdrew in 2000. Nasrallah was not unscathed in the effort. In 1997 his 18-year-old son, Hadi, was killed while fighting Israeli forces. Nasrallah was also credited with arranging a prisoner exchange with Israel in 2004 that many Arabs considered a victory.

In July 2006, in an effort to pressure Israel into releasing three Lebanese jailed in Israeli prisons, Hezbollah paramilitary forces launched a military operation from the south, killing a number of Israeli soldiers and abducting two. This action led Israel to launch a major military offensive against Hezbollah. At the beginning of the war, some Arab leaders criticized Nasrallah and Hezbollah for inciting the conflict. But by the end of the 34-day war, which resulted in the deaths of 1,000 Lebanese and the displacement of some one million others, Nasrallah had declared victory and had emerged as a revered leader in much of the Arab world, as Hezbollah was able to fight the Israeli Defense Forces to a standstill—a feat that no other Arab militia had accomplished.


Hezbollah - (“Party of God”) - Lebanese organization

Also spelled Hizbollah, or Hezbullah, etc.


Hezbollah - Main militia group and political party that first emerged as a faction in Lebanon following the Israeli invasion of that country in 1982.

Shia Muslims, traditionally the weakest religious group in Lebanon, first found their voice in the moderate and largely secular Amal movement. Following the Islamic Revolution in Shia Iran in 1979 and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, a group of Lebanese Shia clerics formed Hezbollah with the goal of driving Israel from Lebanon and establishing an Islamic state there.

Hezbollah was based in the predominately Shia areas of the Biqa Valley, southern Lebanon, and southern Beirut. It coordinated its efforts closely with Iran, from which it acquired substantial logistical support, and drew its manpower largely from disaffected younger, more radical members of Amal. Throughout the 1980s Hezbollah engaged in increasingly sophisticated attacks against Israel and fought in Lebanon’s civil war (1975–90), repeatedly coming to blows with Amal. During this time, Hezbollah allegedly engaged in terrorist attacks including kidnappings and car bombings, directed predominantly against Westerners, but also established a comprehensive social services network for its supporters.

Hezbollah was one of the few militia groups not disarmed by the Syrians at the end of the civil war, and they continued to fight a sustained guerrilla campaign against Israel in southern Lebanon until Israel’s withdrawal in 2000. Hezbollah emerged as a leading political party in post-civil war Lebanon.

On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah, in an attempt to pressure Israel into releasing three Lebanese jailed in Israeli prisons, launched a military operation against Israel, killing a number of Israeli soldiers and abducting two as prisoners of war. This action led Israel to launch a major military offensive against Hezbollah. The 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 Lebanese and the displacement of some 1,000,000. Fighting the Israeli Defense Forces to a standstill—a feat no other Arab militia had accomplished—Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, emerged as heroes throughout much of the Arab world. In the months following the war, Hezbollah used its prestige to attempt to topple Lebanon’s government after its demands for more cabinet seats were not met: its members, along with those of the Amal militia, resigned from the cabinet. The opposition then declared that the remaining cabinet had lost its legitimacy and demanded the formation of a new government in which Hezbollah and its opposition allies would possess the power of veto.

Late the following year, efforts by the National Assembly to select a successor at the end of Lebanese Pres. Émile Lahoud’s nine-year term were stalemated by the continued power struggle between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the Western-backed government. A boycott by the opposition—which continued to seek the veto power it had been denied—prevented the assembly from reaching a two-thirds quorum. Lahoud’s term expired in November 2007, and the presidency remained unoccupied as the factions struggled to reach a consensus on a candidate and the makeup of the new government.

In May 2008, clashes between Hezbollah forces and government supporters in Beirut were sparked by government decisions that included plans to dismantle Hezbollah’s private telecommunications network. Nasrallah equated the government decisions with a declaration of war and mobilized Hezbollah forces, which quickly took control of parts of Beirut. In the following days the government reversed the decisions that had sparked the outbreak of violence, and a summit attended by both factions in Qatar led to an agreement granting the Hezbollah-led opposition the veto power it had long sought.

In July 2008 Hezbollah and Israel concluded an agreement securing the exchange of several Lebanese prisoners and the remains of Lebanese and Palestinian fighters in return for the remains of Israeli soldiers, including the bodies of two soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah had sparked the brief war two years earlier.

Links:

See articles below from 2000 to 2008.

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